Subcooled Liquid Change of Phase Thermal Management for Electronic Packaging

The proposed work involves assessment of the feasibility of removal of large, concentrated heat fluxes from multi-chip circuit boards in high performance aircraft by means of liquid jet impingement cooling with subcooled change of phase. Previous studies have shown that, unlike many other types of liquid immersion concepts, the thermal performance of the proposed concept is more sensitive to coolant velocity than to flow rate. Thus, performance can be greatly enhanced by reducing jet width (in order to increase jet velocity) without increasing the coolant flow rate. Key features of the proposed jet impingement concept are its ultra high heat dissipation capabilities, up to 660 Watts per device using FC-72, small pressure drop and simplicity of design and fabrication. The key objectives of the proposed project are disigning a single multi-jet manifolding plate which can be accommodated within the geometrical constraints of avionics cooling modules, modeling the development of vapor bubbles on the device surface (to establish design guidelines for preventing dryout and ensuring complete condensation of the bubbles prior to exiting the module), and designing the module itself, maximizing the use of commercially available hardware.